Ch. 8: Seige of the House of Lane
Back to Arheled Hunter Light had to unlock the door when he came in on his lunch break. Everything was silent and empty. No sign of the kids. The table was in a mess as if breakfast had just been eaten; except the remains were several hours old. By the time he had circled the Island and gone calling all over the mountain across the street, Hunter was beginning to be seriously alarmed. Out of breath from the unwonted exercise of mountain climbing, he staggered back into the house, just in time to receive a phone call from Chrissy’s workplace. She had apparently been in the middle of a project and suddenly walked off the planet. All he could say was “Haven’t seen her since morning.” He went up the stairs again, heavily. Perhaps there were traces this time. Maybe one of them had left a note. Bell’s room had nothing. He hesitated about going into Forest’s room, but the terrible painting was safely covered and he summoned courage to search. The expected note was there, all right, fallen off the bed. '' Dad, we have been summoned to battle. Arheled will tell you. '' '' Love, Bell & Forest '' Hunter Light sat down on the bed. His legs felt even weaker. Arheled. There it was again. That name. Commander of some mysterious supernatural Road, apparently not a human nor exactly an angel. And now he had taken his kids. “If I had him here!...but I doubt I could choke answers out of him like with Sophia.” The deep ding-dong of the broken doorbell shattered his thoughts. That bell never worked. How could it be…? He kept the door on the chain when he opened it. “Who is it?” he called a little sharply. The voice that answered seemed to come from every part of the house. '' “Arheled.” '' Peering through the door Hunter Light saw a tall man, or manlike, at any rate, for his face was luminous as must have been that of Moses when he came down from Sinai: white and radiant, the features grim and terrible, stern as the sky. For the first time in his life Hunter felt afraid: not the fear of harm or the fear of dark, but a jolting panic like a man losing his footing on a cliff. '' “Well, Hunter of Light? Will you let me in?” '' Slowly, weakly, Hunter unhooked the chain and let it fall. Arheled strode across the threshold. Though he did not have to bend his head, he seemed immeasurably tall, as though by nature he was something huge, something that had compressed itself to be seen and felt in this small form. The eyes that he bent upon Hunter Light were bright and stabbing as candle flames. “I show myself to you as I have not done to any even of the Children, save once when I turned my back. For you have already been awakened, but not yet summoned. I am Arheled. Do you question me?” Hunter found himself speechless. “You shall never know or comprehend my true nature. You shall never be told just who or what I am. For that I tell to none; I am '' venda'', not of angel nor elf, nor of any other people: I am Arheled, I alone.” “You…called my children?” Hunter managed to say. “Yes.” answered Arheled. “I sent them under the earth to stop the incarnation of the Oldest of Evils: the first Dark Lord, now growing ever stronger. Not the Dragon: that ancient serpent bows to him. But lest their families should be used against them, I have sent them to a place of safety where they shall lie asleep until the Children return. Would you join them?” “No.” said Hunter. “I am the Hunter of Light, and I would rather be up and doing something.” Arheled’s fiery eyes faded until they resembled a human’s, yet more brilliant. “Then do you take up your position as Third of the Three Elders, their voice of knowledge. The other two are in the house of Grandmother Lane, and there also lie the sleepers; for the Lane house is the oldest and the most defensible. I will take you to them. Whom do you serve, Hunter of Light?” There were at last no doubts in Hunter’s mind. It all was suddenly so clear. “I serve the Road and the Warden of the Road.” Arheled stretched forth his hand. In a strange suspense Hunter watched it approach, blue light welling through the skin, until it touched him. He looked up. He was alone upon a driveway paved with round yellow gravel under white pines. Thick rhododendrons lay upon the right. Walking up this drive he came upon two houses, yellow-sided with white trim. The one on the right was small and, despite the modern vinyl siding, bore an air of antiquity. The left-hand house was large and modern, and going up to the door he rang the doorbell. No sound could be heard, but the door swung slowly open by itself. “Hello? Hello?” Hunter called. No one answered, and he stepped in, calling out at intervals. The house was not silent, despite the lack of answer: a curious constant sighing and occasional snorts echoed softly through the neat interior. He came into one of the drawing rooms and stopped dead. On the chairs and couches a family sprawled, asleep. There was an oldish stout man with a bulldog’s face, a sad thin woman with grey hair, and two or three young men. A fat-cheeked young girl lay on the floor. Hunter withdrew, slowly, and now he was afraid. The master bedroom had an elderly couple laid out on the bed, a heavy old man with a ruddy face and long white hair who looked like he belonged in a Western, and a mild-faced lady with a harassed expression. In the next two rooms he found children, small boys of all shapes and sizes and one baby girl huddled together on the bed. The other room had a mouselike man with short-shaved hair, balding on top, and a youngish but worn woman with glasses and a weary face. A tall teen boy lay slumped in a chair. In the living room a corpulent man with a folded, senile appearance lay curled up on a love-seat sofa. All slept as soundly as the dead. In the last room there was only one sleeper, a young woman with golden hair, and it was his wife, Chrissy Lake. She had never looked so beautiful. He shook her, but she only sighed and fell limply back. So fair and vulnerable his wife looked as she lay there in enchanted sleep, that he found himself bending down to kiss her. “I wondered when you would come.” He started upright, heart racing. An old woman stood in the doorway. At least, “old” was the first impression he had, for she wore an ankle-length skirt of antique design and had a heavy fringed shawl around her shoulders, and both shawl and dress seemed faded and pale. But the erect severity of her bearing, and the hard, wood-like fixity of her thin drawn face, gave her a dignity and majesty offset not even a little by the grey bun of her hair. “Well, I—I opened the—nobody answered, so I—“ She lifted one hand. “No excuse is needed. We have been expecting you for some hours. You would be the Hunter of Light, I presume.” She inclined her head when he nodded. “Welcome to the house of Lane, Hunter. I am Grandmother Lane. Come with me. None of the living are here save the sleepers. Do not kiss your wife, for if any of them are kissed in love all will awake. Wayham should be done emptying the freezers by now, and Peter wanted to dazzle us with what he calls ‘tramp soup’. I had better go and see'' what '' he is putting into it.” She moved down the hall toward the stairs, seeming almost to glide though her shoes clicked on the wood floor. She led him to the small old house next door, and he opened the door for her. Inside was cosy and comfortable but small; a fire burned on the hearth and the air smelled heavily of wood smoke, bacon and stew. Something was bubbling on the stove, and stirring it was a tall thin bent old man with grizzled hair recently trimmed to some semblance of civilization and a long rough beard, whom Hunter Light was astonished to recognize as the old tramp he’d seen raiding the McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts dumpster sometimes. What such a disreputable bum was doing here he had no idea; though he had to admit the man wore clean clothes that were not tattered or even patched. Still, being this close to him was a little discomfiting: Grandmother Lane must be giving him a handout or hiring him for an odd job, perhaps. He hoped the man wouldn’t stay long. A loud crash behind him made him jump, but the old woman never turned a hair: another man had entered and deposited an armload of sticks and logs in the woodbox. This man looked much younger, about forty-five, dark hair beginning to gray worn long over his shoulders, with a stern and long-boned face that somehow made Hunter feel even more in awe of him than he had of Grandmother Lane. The eyes were ancient, strange and filled with odd slow thought: a tree’s eyes in a king’s face. Ridiculous, but that was what it felt like. “Ah, there you are.” this individual said in a deep rusty voice. “Good to see you at last.” “Hunter, this is my…relative, so to speak. Wayham Lane, this is Hunter Light.” said Grandmother Lane. “Pleased to meet you.” said Hunter. “At your service.” Wayham replied. The old tramp called at this point, “Does anyone want to eat?” and Hunter realized with some alarm he had been doing the cooking. “We’ll think about it.” Wayham answered. They headed into the kitchen and sat down at the old wood table. The old tramp gravely spooned out a curious but appetizing mess of what seemed to be corn, hamburger and beans in gravy, onto everyone’s plate. He set a fourth plate for himself. To Hunter’s surprise it was the tramp who then said grace: not the long-winded wordy Protestant kind of grace, but a Catholic formula, short and direct, with the pagan sign-of-cross gesture before and after. But he bowed his head anyway. “So where’s this Third Elder?” he asked Grandmother Lane after they were done and the tramp was clearing the dishes. “I thought Arheled said there were two others here.” There was a slight twinkle in the old woman’s eye. “There are.” she replied. The tramp headed into the other room where he could be heard washing the dishes. Hunter Light lowered his voice. “Are you in the soup kitchen line?” he asked, motioning with his head in the tramp’s direction. “No, I am not.” she replied with a certain cold dignity. “But rest assured, you will meet our leader and eldest soon. Not, of course, as old as Wayham,” she and the stern man exchanged an odd glance full of secret laughter, as at some private joke, “but older than you or I. In the meantime, let me show you to your room.” “Thanks, but I have to be getting back to the College…” “You don’t get it, do you, young feller?” said Wayham Lane gruffly. “If you leave the ring of winterberry you will be in their power. Arheled has enough on his platter. Somebody has to guard these sleepers. We’re at war, sonny—and this is a fortress.” “Whose power?” Wayham rolled his eyes. “Knowledge, perhaps, though you haven’t shown much of it, but wisdom, decidedly not. They tell me you’re a scientist. Does that mean you have to see before you’ll believe?” “Thomas went a step farther.” “No, seeing was enough for him in the end. What about you? What have you seen?” “I saw a Star incarnated.” Hunter said in a low voice. “I saw a man become a dragon. I saw two Stars lose a battle of power. I saw the Stars as they were wont to dance.” He looked Wayham in the eye. “I saw Arheled.” “And you still doubt?” Hunter sighed. “It is very hard for me. A man of science lives with two minds, two subconscious ways of thinking. The first is that what we experience in everyday life is all that there is; there is no supernatural, nothing transcending the material; everything can be naturally explained, even miracles and the secrets of life. And the other is that everything is relative, that all principles of material action and composition are in continuous flux, that even the laws of nature, if you examine far enough, do not hold firm: there is nothing fixed, there is no certainty. Most of the time these do not clash; one is hardly aware of their existence; until events occur, or findings appear, that are utterly beyond explication, and then the scientist begins to babble as the assumptions war in his head.” “Scientists,” Grandmother Lane observed calmly, “are very stupid people.” “Excuse me??” “Oh, come, Hunter. Wake up a little. The problem with you is that your mind has no foundation, no basic idea corresponding to reality, no solid conception of what is and is not. That is because you start at the wrong end. You take the shifting statements of men’s knowledge of matter—a knowledge ever changing as more is discovered of the nature of Creation—as fact; as the unchanging reality to base your thoughts upon; and the divine, and the spiritual, you lump vaguely together as “Sunday worship” and keep it unconnected from your calculations and diagrams, your results and your findings. “But truth does not contradict truth. Science only supports religion. Your problem, Hunter, is that you do not believe, not with all of you. If you did, all your changing facts and new findings would be subsumed into your idea of reality: your mind would say, “This is very interesting how God really made the world.” But you hold down inside you that the world made God; that matter was first, and matter caused everything. You have been wrong all your life, Hunter Light. Nothing is relative, for everything is caused; everything is fixed if it proceeds out of God.” Professor Light stared off into space and made no answer. He felt as if he was standing on his head. It really was simple, when you looked at it that way. Numbers tended to make you see everything as complex, tended to make you complicate things; but what were numbers, and equations? Symbols and abbreviations for the structure of matter. But spirits had no matter. Angels, and non-angelic beings like Arheled, were exempt from calculations. It really was simple. He must have been incredibly stupid not to see it. “How come they haven’t already attacked, if you say they’re out for us now?” he said suddenly, his mind switching to practical matters. “I’ve been going around town same as always.” “Things escalate.” said Wayham. “Police often refrain from an arrest until they’re ready; they keep the suspect watched, knowing his habits, waiting for the right time. You’ve been watched—and this house is watched—and so are the houses of the other Children of the Road and their families. Arheled pre-empted them. He took the close relatives of the Children and sent them here, in the strongest of the houses, and sent you here as well, before they could make a move.” “Anybody could walk up the driveway.” protested Hunter. “Only if he was unconnected in any way with the Father of Dragons.” said Grandmother Lane. “Our house is the oldest in these parts. Winterberry, a deciduous holly, surrounds it; no witch can pass such a ring. Our house has been under the Road for four hundred years.” “They can’t just kidnap you in broad daylight.” “Oh yes they can.” said Wayham. “You saw the Dragon—what form does he wear? As whom does he walk?” “Cornello.” said Hunter in a voice of sudden enlightenment. “Of course. They could pull me in on trumped-up charges—and I’d never come back out.” “You understand at last.” Wayham smiled grimly. “Besides, you couldn’t go to your College if you wanted to—we’re in Colebrook, and you didn’t drive here.” Hunter nodded. “So we stay here all day?” “More or less.” said Grandmother Lane. “We patrol the borders every half hour—the winterberry can be cut by an ordinary human, and police may attempt a raid. But Cornello is not so foolish as to mount an open attack. He will prowl, and probe, and wait. Wayham will take you around—we have stayed in here long enough.” (Article from the Register Citizen, Oct. 9th, 2011) WINSTED—In a further twist on the bizarre series of unfortunate events that have plagued our quiet town since spring (see p. 8 for full coverage), police have confirmed that a surprising amount of people have simply disappeared from the area. “We have about twenty cases ongoing at the moment,” Police Commissoner David Wells reported, “all sharing one thing in common, a complete and apparently unexpected absence. None of the victims appear to have packed. Homes are undisturbed and meals left half-eaten.” Asked whether this was related to the previous series of unexplained events, Wells replied he couldn’t say. Several of the missing people are families. The Midwinter family of Riverton, whose father, Captain Dennis Midwinter, is of the NW CT state police force, had a previous case of disappearance: one of their three daughters, Lilac, age 15, vanished on Oct. 3rd or thereabouts. When Captain Midwinter and his oldest daughter Lara, age 16, failed to show up for work two days in a row, and when repeated calls only reached answering machines, concerned colleagues entered the Midwinter house and found the entire family missing. The Ponds of Winchester Center, a couple in their 60s with a daughter Brooke, age 17, were discovered missing when Brooke did not show up for her job at Super Stop & Shop on Oct. 8th. Rufus Lane and his daughter Travel, age 18, of Colebrook have also failed to show up at their workplaces, though police are reluctant to actually break into their house. A bachelor in Burrville, Ronnie Wendy, age 31, was reported missing by his landlord, and calls to relatives in Meriden have not been returned. A local tramp and homeless, Peter Midwinter, has been absent from his usual haunts, but he could merely be on the move to another town. Hunter Light, a professor at NW Community College as well as teacher at Regional High, together with his wife Chrissy Lake and their two children, Bell, age 12, and Forest, age 16, are missing from their house on Highland Lake. Several Winsted residents, Carlee Paulson, Ralph Chatterly, Mary Kate Rogers, Cypress Green, Nerissa Alfgeir, and Officer Connor Harris of the Winchester Police Force, are also reported missing. Indian Summer had come to the North, at long last. The sun was hot and very pleasant, the air grew warm and muggy, and it was almost hot enough to go swimming. Actual color bloomed out on the trees; the swamp maples by the Lane pond were a deep red and orange, and it was altogether way too nice to be teaching in a stuffy classroom. “Brooke will be so ticked off.” said Hunter to Grandmother Lane. “She loves to swim. Even more than my daughter Bell.” “Time and tide wait for none.” she answered sedately. “I prefer a bathtub myself. My old bones are too creaky for autumn water.” Things fell into a routine on that Columbus Day weekend. They divided the night between the four of them, even the old tramp, who insisted on taking his turn at odd hours. “I get up in the middle of the night to raid dumpsters all the time.” he said. “I’m used to it.” “You’re a hundred and four.” said Grandmother Lane gently. “You should get some sleep.” “Well, you’re no spring chicken yourself, ma’am.” “I’m younger than you are, for all that.” Hunter found it difficult to determine what the tramp’s position in this odd household was. He and Wayham divided the chores between them for the most part, but the others often deferred to him, treating him half humerously and half with an odd respect. Perhaps it was his age. With his grizzled grey-white hair, he didn’t exactly look a hundred, but he certainly was old. For his part, even when he grew used to him, Hunter avoided looking at him. The old tramp made him feel almost degraded, and ashamed of his feeling; he simply could not bear his presence. Most of their time was occupied in patrolling the ring of winterberry. The house stood on a low rise, the swamp with its’ pond like a moat between it and the road, and the cleared belt lay on the near side of the pond. From there it traversed the swamp, straggling up the higher ground and around behind the pine wood, then up below the houses and so back to the swamp. Recently cleared of trees, it was a mess of stumps and jewelweed between the irregular clusters and straggling shoots of the holly bushes. Their leaves in some places were a deep dark green going purple on the edges, in others a wan watery green-yellow. In the swamp some of them were already bare. Everywhere the red berries clustered, so thick sometimes as to conceal the twig they grew on; various shades of bright cherry red, and crimson, and orange-red, and white-red, and pale-red, and even a weird yellowy-peach. Wayham had made a winding path, muddy in places, that wove about the inner edge of the berry belt. It had the look of a power utility line without any poles; the belt varied from twenty to fifty feet across. It was easy to see the age of the bushes in the center: bent and kinked as grey laurel, with short crabbed twigs, huge as hills amid their rambling offspring. It was a pleasant walk of perhaps a quarter mile under the autumn trees, the hot sun alternating with shade; then back again to where the belt came closest to the house. There his relief would meet him, and after that he would laze around in a lawn chair and munch on potato chips or cookies or the snacks that Grandmother Lane had provided. “Just for this weekend, mind.” she had admonished. “Then we’re on war rations.” Considering they didn’t dare go shopping, at least until Halloween when news came, this meant plain meals and no snacking. Along the swamp, past the old twisted maple and the queer rotten stump. Over the driveway. Hunter smiled as he spotted the old marker-stones on either side, with an odd symbol like a curling-over Y graven deep into the outward side. Wayham had explained it was the rune for R, standing for Road: the inner ring of the defenses around the Lane house. Wayham had set them himself, the same year he planted the winterberry, he added; at which Hunter gave him an odd look: those bushes were supposed to have been there for centuries. Along the remainder of the alder swamp. Up the knoll, pine needles yellow underfoot and pines on the right, and the whole air full of a dry sunny pine-spice. He made out other markers, here and there; some nearly buried in leaves and soil, some newly unearthed from where they had fallen flat, dark with mould-stain. He heard the sound of footsteps not his own. It wasn’t a surprise. Four or five times they had nabbed a neighboring boy who gave his name as Ben and wouldn’t give straight answers on why he was sneaking around, each time at a different point. One time Wayham had intercepted a UPS man, another time the old tramp had been in time to head off a mailman with a certified letter he insisted had to be signed for, so the tramp tore up the letter and shouted at him until he left. Piecing it together the others were not surprised to find a court summons for Grandmother Lane, Rufus Lane and Travel. “This is their excuse.” said Grandmother Lane. “You do realize the police will show up here if you don’t make an appearance?” Hunter had said. “They would have shown up anyway, on some reason or other.” she answered. Mindful of all this, he stepped behind a tree and waited. Sure enough the two men that crept into view wore police uniforms and had drawn handguns. They wormed through the thick winterberry bushes, moving carefully, guns held upward and ready. Hunter held his breath. Absolutely nothing happened. The holly moved aside like any other bush and the police emerged unscathed. Then the great doubt fell upon Hunter Light. These supposed enemies had entered unhindered. How could they be evil? They were just upholders of the law, doing their duty. What sort of conspiracy theory had he fallen for, with words of whispered mystery and talk of phantom war? Nothing out of the ordinary here. The memory of all the queer events he’d witnessed was dim in his mind. Crickets hummed and chirped sleepily in the warm air. He felt his eyes closing. The police left the winterberry and slipped into the pine grove. Two of the funny old stones, irregular random flat little slabs planted endwise in the ground, were in sight, small and insignificant among the brush and pine roots. The queer Y-shaped symbols etched into the stone glowed red. Both police stumbled as if over a root, picked themselves up and went on, crouched, moving from tree to tree. Hunter’s doubts popped like soap bubbles, as if a spell had broken. The glowing letters now burned blue, and in his mind was a throbbing pulse, like a headache, or a sneeze, an urgent warning, an irresistible urge to take action. His eyes were filling with light. He leaped out from behind his tree and jabbed a finger at the backs of the police. “Freeze!” he yelled. Both police whirled around, guns instantly held level with his chest. Both policemen reeled and stumbled backward, dropping guns and pressing both hands to their eyes. The forest seemed incredibly bright, bright as about ten sunny days, but to him it only seemed amazingly clear. “''Get off our property.” he said. Crawling on hands and knees, groping like blind men, the police shambled back into the swamp. The moment they passed the stones, the glow behind the runes faded, and by the time they emerged from the winterberry the forest had dimmed almost to normal. Hunter Light walked forward, stiffly, feeling as burnt-out as if he’d just been moving rocks, and took the guns. Wayham Lane came crashing through the trees, Grandmother Lane behind him lifting her skirts and actually running. “Everything okay?” he shouted. “We came as soon as we could.” “You felt that funny headache, too?” said Hunter. “Of course we did,” panted Grandmother Lane, “but we couldn’t approach until that light went down. That wasn’t the marker-stones, I presume.” “Well, they were sort of—glowing, as if a light was behind them—is that what you meant? I didn’t see any light.” The others gave him very strange looks. “Young man,” said Grandmother Lane severely, “this entire grove suddenly became about three times brighter than the Sun. We only kept our eyesight by diving behind the house and burying our faces in the ground. Even the ground and the lids of our eyes glowed. Don’t play games with me!” “You do look a bit grubby.” Hunter said doubtfully. “I must admit it did seem rather bright in here all of a sudden. Come to think of it, I had the oddest doubts about you, and this whole bunker mentality, especially when the police walked right through the hedge.” “Did the stones stop them?” said Wayham. “They sort of tripped, that was all. Then I got that headache—like an overpowering urge to '' do something—and I yelled Freeze, and the cops are suddenly staggering around clutching their eyes.” “Hunter of Light.” said Wayham wearily. “Of course. All right, listen up, Junior. That light came from you. ''I do not wish to hear any protests, excuses, indignant incredulousity, or such like. The Road called out to you, to repel an enemy it could not. Those police were not connected with Cornello, and so the Road could not keep them out; but you could order them to leave, and so bring down the Road upon them. I pity them. They will never see again, and their brains may be damaged as well.” Hunter Light blinked a few times. “That would mean that my optic nerves and retinas became suddenly and momentarily enhanced to greater than an eagle’s—at least twelve times, if your description of the light’s intensity is accurate. The sun has an apparent magnitude of negative 26.74, the corona somewhat greater, which would mean that the light you witnessed must have had a magnitude of about 27.80 or upwards. If that light came out of me I would obviously not be affected by it, but for my body to emit any light at all would mean that my skin, and doubtless my blood as well, instantaneously developed bioluminescent properties of simply staggering output ability. This is incredible. This is something no human or animal body is capable of doing. I wonder if any trace remains in my physical makeup. Don’t I wish there was some way to get into my lab!” He headed off, oblivious to everything else, and so did not hear Wayham remark, “The voice of knowledge, that’s him, if there ever was one.” Indian Summer cooled and was gone by Tuesday. The next day it was cloudy, and a soft infrequent rain made the swamp hues muted and luminous, until the leaves began to fall. The rain continued the next day and it grew very humid and warm. They shared a raincoat among them when patrolling. Soon the stove was crowded with socks and pants drying out. Towards afternoon it grew more drizzly than rainy, and sometimes even stopped. It was when Hunter Light was on patrol and had reached the driveway that he saw Arheled walking up it toward him, tall and robed in a great white mantle that flowed out around him. The stones glowed white as he passed, their runes sending out rays of light, and then went dark. He stopped and turned to face Hunter, and before the quiet majesty of that face Hunter felt an overpowering impulse to kneel. “I hear you blinded two men the other day.” he said. “And have turned back no less than five attempts of dragons at sneaking in.” “Most of that was the others, sir.” Arheled nodded. “Consider yourself off-duty.” he said. “Let us go inside. I have words for the Elders, and for Wayham Lane.” They walked up the drive in silence. Hunter at length summoned up courage to ask, “Sir, Mr. Arheled?” “Arheled, or Sir, will do fine, Mr. Light.” the Warden answered. “But to answer your question, yes, you did glow. You hunt light. It knows you. It is, in point of fact, your province. Before long you will know it better.” “You mean I’m going to be like some kind of superhero?” “A superhero is a musclebound showoff with a delusion of saving the world.” answered Arheled. Hunter was a little taken aback by the suppressed mirth in the solemn voice. “I am not here to pull spandex over your chest and put underwear on top. Nor do I come with grave tales of gadget-laden villains with a penchant for gloating and super powers of annoyingosity, whose only reason for being a problem is that they have a weapon that, most improbably, is somehow able to doom the world. No, I have called you all here not to save the world, but to die.” “I don’t understand.” “Ah, but I do. Count yourself fortunate, Professor, that not even I can see into the future; for if I could, despair might well come even upon me, who am little less than the angels. And if the elect are to have even a chance of passing through the time that lies ahead, that sin above all others must be far from me, that I may build and gather and call and send, and at the very least cast a tripwire before the advance of the Darkness that is coming.” They reached the Lane house at this point and walked inside. Grandmother Lane looked up from the table and made a dignified but reverent curtsey. The old tramp behind her sank stiffly on one knee. But Wayham Lane made no move. “You do well, Wayham lane.” said Arheled. “For a king bows to no one.” “I don’t quite follow you.” said Wayham. “You do not know who your father was, but I do, and that was why I kept you alive. As I kept your father alive in his time, for the line must be kept unbroken, and with the perishing forever of the kingdom of old it could no longer be left to chance.” “Sir, I do not understand.” Wayham protested. “Whose line? Who is my father? To whom do I owe my blood?” “The blood that you owe is the blood of the Gods.” Arheled made answer. “The man whom you call father is not in the living earth. In him of all Men survived the last of his line, survived by fish and then by hawk and kept alive from Flood to Light. I speak of Narkil, Wayham. To find the answers that you seek, you must seek his ancient sword.” “Where do I seek for the sword of my father?” “Follow the light of the eyes of the Ring when you walk into the rooms of the Lost Caves of Colebrook. To you the others I have only this to say: watch and be wary! There is battle beneath the earth. Your children are powerful, Mr. Light, you will be happy to know. They are safe and well.” He drew the white mantle close around him, and swirled away in a rush of white dust that was gone. Conversation was subdued around the dinner table that night. The air was growing cooler, though intermittent rain still pattered down, so the wood stove was lit in the cellar and dry warmth ebbed slowly up from below. Hunter noticed with the usual irritation that both the tramp and Grandmother Lane crossed themselves before grace. “Are you folks Catholic?” he said to her. “We go to St. James,” she answered, “so you would call us Episcopalians, though I prefer High Church or Anglo-Catholic. Peter there is a Roman Catholic, however. We have been engaging in discussions lately—us of St. James—as to whether we should take up the Pope’s offer and join the US Anglican Ordinariate of the Catholic Church, but that would likely take years.” “What about you?” said Hunter, motioning towards Wayham Lane. “What’s your persuasion, if you don’t mind my asking?” “Aye, to know a man’s persuasion is essential,” agreed Wayham, “for then you know what system he partakes of and so guess with some approximation what his courses of thought or action are likely to be. As, for instance, those whose persuasions are Wicca. As for me…I suppose I was Church of England back in my day, but as in my days no white men had even bothered to settle here and the only churches were down in the Spanish settlements hundreds of miles away, there wasn’t much chance of churchgoing. Since I came back I’ve more or less gone with Crimella and Rufus of a Sunday.” “I’m Baptist.” said Hunter. “I guess it’s my watch,” said Wayham, rising, “as Peter seems to be at the door. Good night, all.” Hunter did not like night patrol. Being shaken awake in the cold ungodly hours and having to get all wrapped up, and then being wide awake by the time he was done. But he did rather enjoy seeing the stars like bright fruit through the thinning leaves, and smelling the soft coldness of the stirring breezes as the night air shifted in its’ unquiet sleep. Tonight, as she had before the clouds came, the moon stared cold and clear down into the trees, filling the forest with her ghastly grey clarity and dead blueish stare, in which objects were at once distinct, and difficult to make out. Dawn grew, pale in the eastern sky. Coming out onto the lawn Hunter Light looked up at the terrible constellations that were coming to dominate his mental world. There was the mysterious Herald—Orion no longer—bending his mighty bow, and behind him the Wolf bit at his heels, and beneath and within the Wolf lurked the Father of Dragons, and there was Murzim the Herald, the ancient celestial West, forever pursued by the Wolf. Dim and faint in the paling of dawn and moon the River Daslenga flowed under the Herald. He walked on toward the back. Daylight grew, pale grey and dim blue under the trees. On the lawn a figure stood, still as stone, gazing at him. “Good, old Wayham came out early.” thought Hunter as he walked up. “All’s well that I can see.” he reported. Wayham made no answer. “Thanks for coming out early.” said Hunter awkwardly. “Er, is anything the matter?” Wayham neither moved nor spoke. He stared outward fixedly, gazing into nothing; there was no expression on his face. It was as if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open. “Hey! Are you all right?” Hunter said loudly, trying to shake him. It was like shaking a rock. Wayham’s eyes did not so much as twitch. With a slow sense of dawning alarm Hunter realized the other did not even seem to be breathing. The eyes stared off into nothing, ancient, blank, a faint air of dawning woe in their unmoving gaze. Hunter Light lifted his hand to feel the pulse; it was cold and rough as wood, and with a growing sense of nightmare he saw that the nails looked greenish. He looked closer. Unfolding even as he watched, tiny leaves were growing in the skin. Chills shooting down him, Hunter dropped the hand. It did not fall, but stayed rigid as an outthrust branch. And from his shoes thousands of pale rootlets were growing: his feet were putting out roots, he would not move. “Help!” Hunter yelled, stumbling backwards. “Somebody, wake up! Help!” “Wha-at?” Grandmother Lane’s irritated and sleepy voice demanded from a window. “It’s Wayham! Something’s—something’s wrong with him!” Grandmother Lane’s voice sounded tartly exasperated. “What, precisely, is wrong with him, Professor?” “He’s apparently turning—“ Hunter glanced at Wayham. Leaves were curling out of both hair and beard, and tendril-like fingers of green emerged from his clothes and from his fingertips like leafy claws. “Into a tree.” he finished in a faint voice. “Is that all.” said Grandmother Lane sardonically. In a few moments she came out wrapped in her shawl over her flowery faded nightgown. “Surprising but not entirely unexpected. He’s been one for the past four hundred years, after all.” “He’s whaaaa….” Hunter’s voice trailed off. Grandmother Lane marched up to Wayham. She had to push aside the leaves that now hung like ivy all down his body in order to look at his face. The skin was brown and furrowed like bark. Open and immobile the sad eyes stared out at the world. “Get Peter out here!” snapped Grandmother Lane. “We need him. Peter!” she shrilled in her old voice. “Stir your ancient stumps!” “Coming, Mother.” grumbled the old tramp from inside, and soon the grizzled tramp, hair standing wildly out in all directions, shambled out onto the lawn. He wore only a torn pair of flannel pants, a ragged dark red bathrobe thrown over him like a mantle, and his naked chest looked withered and gross with body hair, like an aged and withered Elias. Hunter felt disgusted, and ashamed of his disgust, and didn’t look at him. “You might give a man time to dress.” “Wayham’s in trouble.” she said tersely. The tramp, his feet bare in the dew, shuffled around the leafy stump, peering closely at it and muttering in amazement. Then he pushed back the ivylike hair and shouted into that still wooden face, “Wayham Lane, in the name of the Road and by the power I am vested, come back! '' I command you!” Slowly the eyes of Wayham blinked and focused. “No one commands me.” he creaked in a weird wooden voice. “Well, you should have some modicum of responsibility then! It’s your watch! Now wake up!” “Oh.” said Wayham, apparently perceiving his leafy condition for the first time. “My apologies. I’m still…discovering…how to manage this.” His wooden face contorted as he spoke. Slowly leaves and roots withered and retracted, shrinking back inside skin and hair, and skin and hair and clothes grew human once again. “I hope I did not frighten you overbadly.” “Wait, wait, wait,” said Hunter, “do you mean you turn yourself into a tree—''at will??” “Not entirely at will, Hunter.” said Wayham. “It comes on me when I fall into a brown study; this is the first time it got out of hand. Usually I can wake myself up, but I’m—absent–minded. Tree-minded, these days.” “But how is that even ''possible? I mean, bioluminescent abilities suddenly transforming my skin and blood—farfetched, but I can understand it. But to alter your chemical composition and density to not only the appearance but the physical properties of wood…” “Hunter,” said Wayham gently, “I was born in 1572. I am currently four hundred years and twoscore in age. I have seen four returnings of the Road and will soon live through a fifth. I strayed onto the roads of the Stars and there Arheled laid a spell on me, that I would walk as tree until someone spoke to me my name. Now it seems I have a power, to turn from man into tree. I am the founder of the house of Lane. I am Wayham Lane.” Hunter Light stood, speechless, staring at him. “Oh yes, it’s my watch, isn’t it? My last, I fear. I leave this day for the Lost Caves. You others, get some sleep if you can. I’ll stand two watches.” “Your funeral.” snorted Grandmother Lane. “I’ll make sure you have a good meal inside you before you go.” “But if he steps beyond the hedge, he’ll be in peril.” Hunter protested. “They won’t be looking for a tree.” said Wayham dryly. When Wayham had set off down the path and the old tramp had shuffled back inside, Hunter looked at Grandmother Lane. “Why is that old fellow here?” he said. “Who is he? What was he saying?” Grandmother Lane looked at him with a cool, almost haughty stare. “You should not be so swift to despise him, Hunter.” she said. “Yes, I know, we’re not supposed to judge anyone, but—“ “On the contrary,” said the old woman, “we must make judgements every day of our lives, whether a man is in the right or wrong, is he good or bad, trusty or untrusty. Personal appearance is often secondary to such essential considerations. And Peter is trusty, Hunter, make no mistake about that. He is '' one of us''. And I expect him to be treated as such,” she added with a frosty dignity, before moving off toward the house. Wayham Lane came in a couple hours later, when Grandmother Lane had prepared a large meal of bacon, eggs and chicken soup. “Drove off that young dragon what keeps hanging around here.” he said. “I told him I knew he was a dragon, and a dragon reborn. That rattled him. I know his kind. I hate them. Sullen dark teenagers, puerile and arrogant. I hated them by sight when they walked by my bridge.” “Wait—you mean that kid Ben?” said Hunter. “He’s a dragon?” “You never wondered why the odd doubts?” Peter said dryly. “Dragon-spell. It is perilous to meet their eyes.” “Yes, so I’ve heard. But I thought you could resist hypnotism.” “Ordinary hypnosis, yes, men can resist, if they are aware and have the will for it.” the old tramp said. “To a greater or lesser degree depending on their interior makeup. But a dragon—you meet their eyes, Hunter, and you’re a goner, unless defended by some other power. Túrin, for instance could look Glaurung in the eye, but only when wearing the visor down on his helmet. And his sister fought the dragon for some time, but he was stronger than her. Magic, Hunter. It’s their Father’s power that looks out of their eyes.” After he had eaten, Wayham Lane packed for his journey. A water-bottle he took, and energy bars, and a loaf of hard bread Grandmother Lane had baked nearly yeastless, on purpose, with whole-grain flour. She made him take the bread-knife as well as a hatchet. “I wish you’d accept one of the guns.” she said. “I will need no guns, Crimella.” he said. The three of them went with him to the border. He shook hands with the men, and Hunter was relieved to feel skin instead of wood. He embraced Grandmother Lane, kissing her on both cheeks. “May God keep you safe, my daughter long-descended.” he bade her. “You others, somebody’s going to have to finish the woodpile. Prepare for a major assault. They will come again, and this time they will come in strength. May the Road rise to meet you.” Then leaves blossomed out of him, and hair and clothes transformed to twigs and leaves, and he grew taller, and branches sprouted from him: pale branches, smooth as a beech, with curious long dark-green leaves that were fuzzy and silvery underneath. The tree slipped smoothly off into the forest, roots causing the soil to briefly bubble and churn, and then it was swallowed up amid the shifting foliage, a slow-moving shadow. The next few days passed without any sign of trouble. It was lovely weather, too, warm but with a cool breeze, sunny and pleasant. The swamp maples had lost their new color in the rains when half the leaves fell, and much of the remaining foliage had a dry, crumpled orange look to it. It was starting to feel like Halloween. The nights were cool but not frosty; it was actually, on the whole, a mild October. “Not a warm October,” Grandmother Lane said, “the one in 2007 was a warm October! 80s half the time and no frost until Halloween.” “That’s next week, isn’t it?” said Hunter. “Week after, actually.” she corrected. “I always get pumpkins out around this time, and Travel always liked to carve them. Even now she’s a big girl. I hope she gets back in time.” “Same here.” muttered Hunter as he set out on patrol. His thoughts delved down into the unimaginable realms beneath the earth where our knowledge ends, which his children were penetrating. Where were they now, Forest and Bell? Had they even neared their goal? Deep in thought, he barely noticed the rustling of the winterberry hedge, until the motion at a distance drew his eyes. He stopped, frowning through his glasses. Was that just his imagination, or were there moving shapes inside those trees? The runes scratched into the old flat stones all suddenly glowed red. Hurrying back along the path, Hunter got to the end of the swamp thickets and crashed through the laurels. He met Grandmother Lane barging out of the house, and the tramp threw down an armload of sticks right where he was and rushed to join them. “They’re here.” said Hunter. “Yes,” Peter said in his rusty voice, “riot police have breached the south ring. Others have set up a perimeter in the winterberry hedge. But there is more…I feel others, standing outside the driveway gap, waiting…” “How do you know all that?” demanded Hunter. “I don’t feel a thing!” “It is not your province.” Peter said firmly. “I am told because I must direct. You got the guns?” “Right here.” said Hunter, pulling the two loaded handguns from his belt. They had not dared to practice with them, as they had no ammunition, and the very feel of them made Hunter think of a man holding a wild runaway machine: he had barely any idea how to hold them, let alone shoot them. He gave one to Peter. “Crimella, face the west!” Peter ordered, sudden and crisp. “Hunter, the east. I will handle the south.” “And do what?” said Hunter heatedly. “I don’t even know how to turn on whatever it is I do!” “We must call down the Road upon them.” Peter answered. “At my command, as one repeat this line: In the name of the Road you will trespass no more.” “We must hurry.” said Grandmother Lane. Scurrying black forms in glass helmets with clear shields were running from tree to tree of the pine grove, and the laurel bed rustled as in an unnatural wind. “So many.” murmered Hunter. “How can we hold off so many?” “Ready on my word.” said Peter steadily. A megaphone began to shout from in the trees: “We have you surrounded. Throw down your weapons. Put your hands over your head. Get down on the ground now.” “You have trespassed upon the land of the Road.” said the old tramp. As one all three shouted, “In the name of the Road you will trespass no more!” '' A quiver went through the earth. Little black figures with flailing limbs filled the sky like leaves. The area within the ring of stones was free of foes. “I don’t get it. What just happened?” said Hunter. “The Road cannot repel those who bear no bond to Chaos.” answered Peter. “Not unless we name them foes, and so bring down the Road upon them. They were expelled. Thrown out on their ear. They will no longer be able to pass the ring of stones.” A burst of varicolored fire erupted from the swamp. “It’s the others I’m afraid of.” Peter added. The three broke into a run. “They’re shelling the south border!” shouted the tramp. “What about the driveway?” panted Hunter. “The hedge is sealed there by several of the rocks, remember?” puffed Grandmother Lane. They hurried through the pine grove and stumbled to a halt when they neared the border. Dragon-fire was spitting in balls and jets toward them, and quenching the second it got near the hedge. It slowed and ceased as the dragons realized no barrage could breach the Lane defenses. One or two tried to approach the hedge or fly over it, only to yelp and turn hurriedly back, as if burned. “Well, I’ll be darned.” said Hunter. Several of the riot police passed the dragons as if they weren’t there; the dragons had made themselves invisible. But those inside the ring of stones could not be blinded by any dragon-arts, and they saw their foes. The riot police raced through the hedge and reached the insignificant little rocks sticking up on end. The runes glowed red and the police staggered back as if they’d run into a brick wall. “They must have some weird force-field barrier in place.” the three heard the police saying to one another. “Get the grenades. For cryin’ out loud, nobody expected a freakin’ compound out here!” “Can grenades breach the--?” Hunter began. “Ssh!” hissed Peter. “Not a sound!” Though a little annoyed at being suddenly bossed by this homeless geezer, Hunter shut up. The men came hurrying back. They pulled the pins. They threw the grenades. Fire and fiery smoke vomited skyward. Fire and smoke went out like a switch at the ring of stones. The smoke blew away to reveal an entire section of the winterberry hedge blown to dust, save for burning stumps. “I was afraid of that.” said Grandmother Lane. “With no connection to Chaos, their fire can act upon the hedge.” The police hurried forward, only to be repelled by the ring of stones as before. They opened fire, their guns thundering into the unseen wall that kept them out; and their bullets only vanished, absorbed by the power that protected that house. The dragons rolled their eyes. In their human shape they walked carefully through the blasted breach, avoiding the stumps and unconsumed wood. Behind them walked women robed in black, with red shawls on which were sewn in black symbols of magic. Pushing the police aside they lined up, one behind another, each one so close they might have been soliciting seductions. Dragon alternated with witch, and boy with girl; and many sultry glances and giggles were exchanged, before every face turned toward the barrier. Every hand groped inside the clothing to seize the secret parts of the person in front of them. Linked thus in this obscene fashion, the chain of enemies thrust forth against the barrier of stones. The heads of the dragons grew until they rose a foot and more above the witches. From every dragon’s mouth, into the back of the head of the dragon in front of them, beamed a blast of dragon-power, fire and elemental ability mingled with sorcery and fell power, issuing redoubled from the mouth of the dragon it entered, until from the foremost dragon there smashed full against the unseen wall a blinding rainbow blast. And the magic of the witches spiraled around the outer edges like a sickening mist of green, adding to it. It sprayed out against the air, and the stones in the ground shivered, and their glow flickered wildly. Hunter felt a tremendous sense of ''strain in his head, as if he was part of the burdened barrier. He groaned. “Steady!” shouted Peter. “That barrier won’t hold much longer! When they breach, fire our guns! Don’t stop until they’re empty! Maybe blessing them with holy water might let the bullets get through. Steady on my command!” “Just who the heck are you to go around giving us orders?” snapped Hunter. “I am Peter Midwinter, eldest and leader of the Three Elders; and you are under my command.” said the old tramp. His voice was cold and dreadful. The stones began to crack. The beam of dragon-power no longer flared, but pressed inward. Slowly Hunter and Peter lifted their guns, holding them level in both hands, fingers on the triggers. The stones shattered. Four slabs broke, with a crackling burst of looping red sparks and blue bolts of lightning, and a great rent was made in the unseen wall. The dragons and witches stumbled, many falling over flat, as does a man pushing on a door when it unexpectedly opens. The power-blast wavered like a hose and started fountaining about, until the dragons shut off the power. The two men fired as fast as they could, pushing or pulling everything they could that looked like a trigger. The guns jerked violently in their hands. Dragons and witches howled with pain: evidently some of the bullets were getting through. With a click and jolt the guns ran dry. Up from the ground where they had dodged, rose nearly all of the Enemies. Only a few seemed to be out of the fight. There was little blood. Bullets popped out of flesh as the dragons shapeshifted themselves whole. Witches were preforming healing incantations on the injured. Walking as steadily as hikers out for a stroll, they entered the defenses of the house of Lane. The sun went in. Deep mutters of thunder sounded on all sides, and an unnatural gloom descended under the trees. A cold wind began to stir. In the darkness the figure of Hunter showed luminous, light escaping from hair and skin and eyes, welling through his clothes. About the head of Grandmother Lane was a frosty nimbus of crackling blue, and sparks spat across her eyes. A weird light shone in the face of Peter Midwinter, and his long hair rose as on an unseen wind. The empty guns lifted in the hands of the two men, and their muzzles glowed an eerie blue and white. They pressed the triggers, holding them down like the nozzle of a hose. From the mouths of the guns burst streams of power. From Hunter’s gun beamed a torrent of what had to be light, yet it was liquid, and spurted like water, blindingly gold and white. From the gun of Peter Midwinter a flickering thick beam of something streamed against the Enemies: some sort of power, but wavering like heat and nearly as transparent; it was no one color, it was not even color at all, but somehow to the eyes of all that looked upon it it seemed like to weather; to fall, and to winter, to cold and to heat, to growth and rain and snow: To the Seasons. Witches and dragons were bowled away like rocks in a giant flood. They could be heard howling in pain as they streaked into the forest, rags of robes and clothes flying away behind them, mingled with bits of flesh. Silence fell upon the house of Lane. With a groan the men lifted their fingers from the triggers of their guns. “Did we win?” said Grandmother Lane. Out of the woods and out of the trees came a blinding wave of rainbow light. Linked as before, dragons and witches strode toward the blasted ring, a thunderous burst of mingled power vomiting out of hand and mouth. Slowly the Three Elders lifted their left hands. With their right hands they gripped each other’s left shoulders, save for Hunter at the left end. Light wavered and rayed about Hunter Light. Lightning crackled from Grandmother Lane. From Peter Midwinter the power of the Seasons glowed. Slowly they held out their left hands, lifted in a gesture of halting. The guns dropped to the ground. Like a spiraling vortex of rainbow-hued fire, lightning in many colors wreathing around it, the mingled powers of the Enemies split the air continuously as they thundered full upon the Elders. But as it neared them the blast sputtered and wavered, expiring in front of them as if upon a shield. The outthrust hands of the Elders glowed with a fierce light. Overhead the clouds began to rotate downwards, lit from within a hideous yellow that was already deepening to eerie green. The cloud ridges were no longer grey but black. Thunder crashed right above them. The witches all looked up. Down from the spiraling clouds roared a whirlwind transparent, its’ coils bright as if woven from liquid fire, shedding an awful white glare over the ground. Lightning lanced out from it into the earth, and the bolts were blinding violet. “Steady!” shouted the Witch in White, in the awful amplified tones of the Green Lady. “It is only weather! We are greater than weather!” Grandmother Lane said nothing, but fire leaped in her eyes. The whirlwind funelled down upon the line of foes, shaking the earth with its’ titanic roar. Lightning smote like rain upon them. The witches, keeping their left hands inside the pants of the dragons, held up their right hands. Wands flashed with deadly light. The tornado shuddered as the magic of the witches battled with the will of Grandmother Lane. “Mortificious!” shouted the witches as one. Grandmother Lane gasped as the malice of her foes thrust into her heart. The tornado wobbled, gyrated and disrupted as she lost control of it. Peter Midwinter gave a terrible shout. From his outstretched hand roared a wind of weird light. Suddenly the line was assaulted from all sides by every kind of seasonal climate. Intolerable desert heats mixed with the supersubzero cold of the deepest Antarctic night. Snow drove in their faces, and rain fell like whips, and huge hailstones appeared from all directions like cannon fire. Recovering, Grandmother Lane held up her hand again, and a wind hundreds of miles an hour shot in a ten-foot-wide path from her palm, beating back the blast of fire and bearing back both witch and dragon. And that was when Hunter Light cut in. The unnatural clouds turned a sudden blinding white. No shadows remained within a mile. Every tree and bush became as bright as living flame. Leaves exploded from the sheer brilliance of the light that was striking them. Had they not been linked to him the other Elders would have been overwhelmed; but they, like him, merely beheld all things lit incredibly clear and detailed, almost transparent. The riot police, who could see the power blast though nothing else of the line of foes, and been trying to get through to HQ for further orders as well as run tests on the barrier. When the beam appeared, all of them donned welding goggles, remembering the fate of the two officers; this was the only thing that saved their lives. Even with them their eyes were filled and seared with intolerable light; they dove to earth, piling leaves and soil over their heads, and still through opaque dirt the light welled up, and they clamped transparent hands over transparent lids and screamed into the ground on which they lay. Even the dragons were overpowered for a moment or two, and only a quick spell by the Witch in White kept the witches from blindness. Buffeted by wind and by season, by lightning and by light unbearable, the enemies began to give ground. All save one. The Witch in White, being a religious witch, was immune to the power of light, and having a ghost look through her eyes kept them unblind, for the dead cannot be affected by any material energy. She stabbed with her hand, and fear jolted through Hunter Light, and his glare wavered. Taking heart, the witches lifted up their wands, and one dragon broke from the link and stood to the side. He was a black kid, and even though blacks normally have bright eyes, even the whites of his eyes were black; and he wore a black trench coat and dreadlocks painted black. From his mouth breathed a darkness. Not fire, not heat, not any elemental power: darkness made solid, a thing of its’ own, even as Ungoliant spewed in the beginning of the world. Like shooting towers it rocketed upward, soreading like the smoke of a gas-bomb, until all that wood was enveloped in a shadow that strangled and a night that choked. The glare Hunter Light was overborne, and the dragon-blast pressed the Three Elders back into the pines, and the linked foes walked forward. “For darkness has no limits, '' ''And darkness knows no limits,” '' '' '' chanted the dragons and the witches as they walked, ''“Darkness has a name, '' ''And darkness has a face…” '' “We must stand!” gasped Grandmother Lane. “We are not strong enough alone! We must act as one!” shouted Peter. “At my word: steady…now…''fire!” As one man the Three Elders thrust out their left hands. Three beams of power sliced into the darkness. Light concentrated like a white laser thundered from Hunter Light. The essence of the seasons rushed from Peter Midwinter. Wind and weather compressed howled out of Grandmother Lane. It rove the living darkness like a bomb. The obscene linking of their foes was broken. Dragons and wiutches tumbled along the ground like leaves, until they fell into the swamp water and mud. But then Hunter’s light bent, and the powers of the Elders began to veer as if by tremendous magnets. One of the dragons had not been blown away. He could no longer be seen, for light was no longer reflecting off him. Leaves and wood and sticks suddenly leaped up and vanished into him: a man-high darkness, a living hole. The beams of the Elders began to spiral around him, until they too were sucked into him. Trees groaned and leaned inward, branches all straining toward him as their roots rose slowly from the earth. “It’s a gravity dragon!” shouted Hunter Light. “Cease fire! He’s turning himself into a black hole!” “He can do that?” said Peter doubtfully. “If he commands gravity, yes.” Hunter said impatiently. “Don’t attack him; he thrives on that. Maybe if…” A lance of black and white magic sprang out of the swamp. All the witches had joined their wands and curses. So potent was their malice that it felled the Three Elders like a blow, to sprawl, minds seared and burnt, unhurt but broken upon the grass. The Gravity Dragon shut off his power and returned slowly to normal, as witches and dragons streamed past him. In raced the forces of the enemy. In through the ring of stones the dragons passed. Into the fortified yard of the house of Lane came the witches, wands whirling, laughing like the mad. The Three Elders moved and feebly tried to rise. The house of Lane was open and undefended. “We…must…” whispered Peter. “It is no use, Peter,” groaned Grandmother Lane. “We are broken. We cannot fight now.” “I never expected we would lose.” Peter said faintly. A witch running past kicked him and he broke off with a gasp. “I have called you all here to die.” murmered Hunter. “Now I begin to see what he meant.” The ground began to shake. Witches blasting at the locked door paused, looking around doubtfully. Dragons sniffed, popping into dragon-form as they craned their long heads. The ground moved. Up and still up it rose, earth and rocks and roots and trees, as if the knoll of the house of Lane had taken life and become a giant wave, dirt bubbling like foam and showering down only to be subsumed back into the base of the rising cone of earth. It was tall as the house now, yet still it grew, narrower and higher, and it took on a shape, even as the ground shuddered with the roar of its’ arising. Witches and dragons were unleashing their gigantic powers against it, but still it rose, and took on form, until a giant made of earth and half buried in the earth towered above the beleaguered houses. “What devilry is this?” roared the Green Lady through the mouth of the Witch in White. “Attack him!” roared the Darkness Dragon. “He is only an Earth Elemental! But we are stronger than him. We are Dragons!” Laughter like the falling of the hills sounded from the monster made of earth. Fire and ice, water and darkness and gravity and lightning vanished into him without effect. ''“You think that I am a being of material alone? You earthworms. Blow your elemental powers at me till you are blue in the face, but unless you can unmake the very mountains, you cannot unmake me.” '' Twenty wands levelled as one. With one voice the witches shouted, '' “Malicacirondo!” '' The tower of earth quivered with laughter. “Cry with a louder voice! Call upon your Father, since your magic is bereft of bite! But I fear he is a tad busy at the moment.” The sky above them filled with earth. Wands fell from limp hands as the witches gaped at the tremendous might of the power coming against them. It looked as if the very hills had stood on end, and climbed up to heaven, and been cast down. The air was broken with the roar of the descending earth. Pops and burst of magic and dragon-fire glowed like bubbles amid the cataract of falling dirt and fluid stone. No magic seemed to work. The very ground they stood on was their enemy. One by one the enemies were fewer, as more and more gave up and teleported. Last to flee was the Gravity Dragon; he had made himself a black hole again. Suddenly he found himself trying to absorb an entire ocean, as the being of earth transported him by virtue of the substance he had attracted onto him. The air settled. The dust cleared. The falling earth sank quietly back into the ground. Slowly the Three Elders got to their feet. The tower of earth still loomed above the shattered grove, trees leaning every which way. The houses were about the only thing left in one piece. The forest for a mile or so around looked like a hurricane had gone through. “Who are you?” shouted Grandmother Lane. The mountain of earth turned his huge head upon them. ''“I am the Wild Man of Winsted.” '' “He’s real?” stammered Hunter. “But I thought he was supposed to be a hairy caveman.” Earth fountained and sank, until the knoll was smooth again. A tall rough man with wild black hair and beard stood before them, a look of saturnine amusement on his craggy face. A huge mantle with tattered edges flowed around him. “Oh, I can look like that too.” he said. His voice was deep and rough but human. “But I usually dress like this.” “A pleasure to meet you at long last.” said Grandmother Lane, giving a dignified and gracious bow of her head: she was leaning heavily on the carven cane Wayham had made for her. “And many thanks for your arrival.” said Peter Midwinter, touching his forehead. “We were just about cooked.” “Oh, you didn’t do too bad,” the Wild Man said critically, lifting an eyebrow at the devastated countryside. “I actually thought for a minute or two I was wasting my time watching. The big man said you might need a little help.” “Is there any word from Arheled?” said Peter. “Actually, yes.” drawled Wild. “New orders. The boss has a quest or two for you while the kids are gone. Come inside and we will speak, and I will watch this place while you look for the Stone of the Hapless.” Back to Arheled